The 193-member UN General Assembly on Thursday voted to adopt a draft resolution moved by the US to suspend Russia from the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) over allegations that Russian soldiers killed civilians while retreating from towns near the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.
Observing that 140 United Nations member states have already voted to condemn Russia over its unprovoked war and the humanitarian crisis it has unleashed upon the people of Ukraine, Thomas-Greenfield said Russia should not have a position of authority in that body, nor should the international community allow Russia to use their role on the Council as a tool of propaganda to suggest they have a legitimate concern about human rights.
Pakistan on Wednesday failed to win a re-election to the United Nations' human rights body. The 193-member General Assembly voted here to elect 18 new members of the UN Human Rights Council.
The announcement came barely a day after the UNHRC condemned the Trump administration for its policy of separating children from the families at the US-Mexico border.
The 18 new members were elected by absolute majority through a secret ballot.
Sri Lanka on Wednesday stoutly opposed a United States sponsored resolution coming up against the country at the ongoing UN Human Rights Council, terming it as "unfair and unjust".
Extrajudicial executions, often disguised as encounters with armed criminals, have become the norm and are widely reported in Indian media. Torture and arbitrary detentions continue, not just in insurgency-affected areas, but also in most police stations in the country. Yet, India continues to provide effective immunity from prosecution to its security forces and other public officials, HRW laments.
The UN working group on the use of mercenaries warned that private security company employees are often provided immunity and are only answerable to their employers. The report said that these 'militarily armed private soldiers' are deployed in war-torn regions such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Colombia, and are often responsible for serious human rights violations.
The United Nations Human Rights Council, meeting in Geneva, is expected to ratify draft principles which will recognize India's caste system as a human rights abuse.
Iran's men's national soccer team wore black armbands and held schoolbags as their anthem played ahead of a match in Turkey on Friday, in what a team official said was a protest over the killing of schoolgirls on the first day of the Iran war.
India played a key role in making the Human Rights Council possible.
AG Mukul Rohatgi led the Indian delegation at the UN Human Rights Council.
Addressing a media stakeout at the United Nations on Tuesday, Israel's envoy said the country's primary objective remained preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear capabilities.
Every UN secretary-general has flagged the financial situation, but Antonio Guterres has issued the direst warning yet, calling it a 'race to bankruptcy and of imminent financial collapse, points out Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
One of the most uncivilised characteristics of this war has been the total disregard for international law and the laws of armed conflict, asserts Vice Admiral Biswajit Dasgupta (retd).
The UN Security Council, with India's support, has adopted a resolution condemning Iran's attacks on Gulf Cooperation Council countries and Jordan, demanding an immediate cessation of hostilities and denouncing threats to the Strait of Hormuz.
Tensions escalate at the UN Security Council as the US and Israel defend their military actions against Iran, while Iran condemns the strikes as war crimes, raising fears of a wider Middle East conflict.
UN intervention has been sought to address the grievances of the people of Gilgit-Baltistan in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
'Why he wasn't released, and why he had to die in custody?'
President Donald Trump has withdrawn the United States from over 60 international organisations, including United Nations bodies and the India-France-led International Solar Alliance, calling the institutions 'redundant' and 'contrary' to America's interests.
Some 40,000 Rohingyas have settled in India, and 16,000 of them have received refugee documentation, the UN estimates.
India was voted to have a one-year term.
Silva's name was mentioned in the resolution passed by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in 2013, alleging rights abuses by the Sri Lankan Army.
Raising the issue of Balochistan for the first time before the United Nation, India on Wednesday accused Pakistan of widespread human rights violations there as well as in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
Asserting that democracy is an 'alien' concept for Pakistan, India has called upon Islamabad to end grave human rights violations in territories under its illegal occupation, where the population is in 'open revolt' against military occupation, repression, brutality and exploitation.
By all available indications, the White House drafted a face-saving note and handed it, ready-made, to Islamabad. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was supposed to then post it in the guise of a plea urging Trump to extend the deadline by two weeks 'to allow diplomacy to run its course'. Trump would then graciously accept Pakistan's 'request' and declare a ceasefire. Sharif dutifully posted the message on X. Except that he, or whoever was handling the account, forgot to delete the tell-tale first line visible in the edit history: 'Draft - Pakistan's PM Message on X'. Prem Panicker's must read blog on the Iran War.
'Human rights issues continue to be exploited selectively, more often for narrow short-term political ends,' Modi tells Ban.
The purge in Washington does not pause the war. Strikes continue, Hormuz remains closed, and Brent crude is still dancing around $109 a barrel. For India, the command chaos in the Pentagon is another layer of uncertainty piled on five weeks of conflict that was already straining every buffer Delhi has.
The BRICS nations have expressed concern over the proliferation of trade-restrictive actions in the form of 'indiscriminate rising' of tariffs, particularly measures used as a means of 'coercion', cautioning that such practices risk marginalising the Global South countries.
'Despite the large number of missiles and drones we have already launched, we still possess reserves and missile cities whose doors have not yet been opened,' says Iran's Consul-General Saeid Reza Mosayeb Motlagh.
Iran is fighting a different war: Older, slower, and in some ways more dangerous. Iran doesn't need to shoot down an F/A-18. It only needs to make the Strait of Hormuz feel dangerous long enough for insurance markets, shipping companies, and oil futures traders to do the rest. Prem Panicker continues his must-read daily blog on the war in the Middle East.
A United Nations commission of inquiry has found that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
'The next two to three weeks will not be decided in Washington.' 'They will be decided in Tehran, in whatever calculation Iran makes about the costs of continued resistance against the costs of appearing to have yielded.'
In a secret-ballot voting in the 193-member UN General Assembly on that race, Pakistan secured 169 votes.
The UN General Assembly on Thursday unanimously adopted a resolution which calls for counter-terrorism measures, including the use of remotely-piloted aircraft or drones, to comply with international law.
Sri Lanka on Monday said the global community cannot raise issues of rights violations against it unless guided by "political reasons," as a top United States official arrived in Colombo coinciding with the United Nations rights council meeting to discuss alleged war crimes during the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam conflict.
India abstained on the resolution, along with France, Japan, Netherlands, and Romania among others. Those voting against the resolution included Argentina, Bulgaria, Germany and the US.
India on Wednesday voted in favour of a draft resolution tabled in the UN Human Rights Council that condemns and strongly rejects recent "public and premeditated" acts of desecration of the Quran.
As the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a United States-sponsored resolution on human rights violations in Sri Lanka, prominent rights groups on Thursday criticised it for failing to establish an independent international investigation into alleged crimes.
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